Exult, thou barren, that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and shout for joy, thou that didst not travail with child for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith Jehovah.
The verse opens with a command to sing. It is given to the one person least able to sing: a woman with no children and no husband. It comes straight after Isaiah 53. Commentators point to that placement to explain the call to joy.
One writer points to the singing on both sides of Isaiah 53:
If you turn to Isaiah 52:7-10 and Isaiah 54:1-10 you will find a good deal about singing. Note that between these two chapters we have perhaps the best-known chapter in the Old Testament — Isaiah 53. The place of this chapter, between Isaiah 52 and 54, gives the key to all the rejoicing of God's people.
So the fruit promised here comes from outside the woman herself:
That verse shows that Israel, in the time when she was deserted, would be more fruitful than she had ever been in the days when God owned her as in relationship with Him. And that verse follows straight on from the glorious truth foretold in Isaiah 53. The fruit was to come from the coming of the suffering Messiah, not from law keeping.
One commentator traces the broken marriage behind the word "desolate":
The barren one here is not Sarah. It is Israel, as the context shows — the one "without a husband." Israel did have a husband. God took Israel as His wife when He entered into the covenant relationship with her (Jeremiah 2). But she became unfaithful, and God had to send her away, as we read in Isaiah and other Scriptures. So she became desolate, without a husband, and she had no children — "you who have not been in labor." But then, what does Paul say? "The children of the desolate one will be more than those of the one who has a husband." Here we see that in the future Israel will come back to God, and then she will see what happened in the meantime: in the two thousand years when God set her aside as a nation, He has brought in this harvest from the Gentiles.
Grace then credits those empty years to her account:
Jerusalem is seen here as barren and desolate, after rejecting Him who came to be her husband. But now, through the grace that has made Jehovah her righteousness, God calls her to make the place of her tent larger and to stretch out the curtains of her home. That grace counts everyone gathered during her desolation as her children.
Some read the promise as the earthly city restored. One writer argues the opposite:
The reference is clearly to the heavenly Jerusalem and not to the earthly one… In the coming day when God's reign is shown over the earth, the prophecy will come true. God will count those who believe now as Jerusalem's children, along with the people born in that day. So it will be proved twice over that the desolate woman has more children than the married wife. What fruit of the best days — say under David or Solomon — could compare with the gathering in of Christian believers since the Jews lost their place as the recognised witness and wife of Jehovah?
Paul quotes this verse in Galatians 4:27. One writer traces the larger family back to Jerusalem itself:
Jerusalem on earth, and her children, boasted in the law. Through the law they had fallen into bondage, and by breaking the law they had become desolate. Still, Paul quotes the prophet Isaiah to show that, during the time of her desolation, there will be more children than when God owned the city as His centre on earth. Is it not this? The very city that proved man's guilt became the place from which the gospel of God's grace went out to all the world. The Lord told the apostles "that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem" (Luke 24:47).
Beyond the prophecy, the image itself teaches something about every person:
The barren woman is in Scripture the type of nature's ruined and helpless condition. There is no ability to do anything for God — no power to bring forth any fruit to Him; all is death and barrenness. Such is the real condition of every child of Adam.
So the only answer left to her is praise:
This is a true picture of grace. The law knew nothing of praise. Hagar's son was born in the natural way. Sarah's child was the child of God's grace and power… When the barren woman bears children, she can only break out in praise.
- Cause — The song of chapter 54 rests on the suffering of chapter 53. That place in the middle is the key to all the rejoicing.
- Condition — The barren woman pictures a helpless state, with no power to bear fruit for God. That is the real condition of every child of Adam.
- Gift — The fruit comes from the coming of the suffering Messiah, not from law keeping.
- Reach — From the city that proved man's guilt, the gospel went out to the whole world.
- Result — Grace counts everyone gathered during those empty years as her children. The deserted wife ends with the larger family.
Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thy habitations spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes.
This call comes right after the chapter about the suffering Servant. God speaks it to a woman with no children. He tells her to build for a family she cannot see. Who are those children, and why can she build with such confidence?
The order to enlarge is an outcome, not a starting point. It rests on what the chapter before described, and this chapter opens not with "enlarge" but with "sing."
Isaiah 54 goes on to unfold what the sufferings of her Messiah bring to Israel, and the first word is "Sing." … That people was barren and unfruitful under the law, while on that basis they were outwardly married to the LORD. They will be not only joyful but greatly multiplied and blessed.
Three pictures fill out the command: widen the cloth, run the ropes further out, make the pegs firm. How firm the pegs are depends on what they go into.
Graphic figures of speech set this out. Her tent is to be enlarged, her cords lengthened, her stakes strengthened. How well stakes hold depends a great deal on the soil they are driven into. When Israel drove her stakes into the law, they gave way almost at once. Driven into the grace of God, which will find its expression in the atoning death of their Messiah, they will be made strong for ever.
Verse 2 does not stand alone. The next verse gives the reason, and it sets the size: a family that spreads out on both sides and takes in nations.
"… for you shall break forth on the right hand and on the left; and your seed shall possess nations, and make desolate cities to be inhabited" (v. 3). A suited seed must fill the land, the earth; for the LORD shall be king over all the earth. … Yes, the LORD is pleased to be the husband of Zion. This is no longer a mere witness and display of man's responsibility under law. It works by the power of grace, when boasting is no more in the flesh but in the LORD.
So who fills the enlarged tent? Some of them are born while the mother is still desolate.
The truth is that Israel in the coming day will be astonished to learn what God has been doing during their long term of widowhood. They will find that countless children have been born to Abraham — true children of promise. These are reckoned, in a spiritual way, as Jerusalem's offspring. We do well to remember that the gospel started from Jerusalem and all its first preachers were of Jewish stock. While Israel is estranged God is busy, and many are being brought in to taste the sweetness of His grace.
One writer holds both horizons together: Israel's future blessing and the Church's present share in it.
The complete fulfillment of that chapter will be when Israel is brought into blessing in the Millennium, but this does not hinder the application, at least a partial fulfillment, to the Church's entrance by faith into this grace in which we stand.
A tent that keeps stretching outward has no defences of its own. Another prophet pictures the same city without walls. His next verse names what guards it.
Jerusalem will be lived in like towns without walls. Its people will increase and break out on every side, past every limit that could hold them. … Isaiah, dwelling on the same period, says, "Enlarge the place of your tent … lengthen your cords, and strengthen your stakes" (Isaiah 54:2-3). But the secret of it all is found in the next verse. The LORD Himself will be a wall of fire around her — a sure protection from her enemies. He will also be the glory within her. It is always so. The LORD's presence has always been the source of all blessing for His people on earth. In the same way, the Lord's presence is now among those gathered to His name.
- Cause. The order to enlarge follows chapter 53. The barren woman grows because her Messiah suffered, and her first response is song.
- Soil. Stakes hold only as well as the ground they go into. Driven into law they gave way at once. Driven into grace they stand for ever.
- Reach. The next verse sets the size: breaking out on both sides, taking in nations, refilling ruined cities.
- Surprise. The children arrive while she is still desolate. Israel will be astonished one day at the family God gathered while she was a widow.
- Shelter. A tent that never stops widening needs no wall of its own. The LORD Himself is the wall of fire around it and the glory inside it.
For thou shalt spread abroad on the right hand and on the left; and thy seed shall possess nations, and they shall make desolate cities to be inhabited.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
Fear not, for thou shalt not be ashamed; neither be thou confounded, for thou shalt not be put to shame for thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth, and shalt not remember the reproach of thy widowhood any more.
God speaks here to a city pictured as a wife: unfaithful, then set aside and left a widow. He tells her to stop being afraid, because two whole seasons of disgrace will drop out of her memory. Two questions follow. How can shame that real be forgotten, and who receives this promise?
The chapter does not begin from nothing. It follows the account of Christ's sufferings, and the commentary reads the whole picture through the image of marriage.
In chapter 53 we hear the Spirit of God foretelling the sufferings of Christ and the glories that will follow. In chapter 54 we learn what follows the exaltation of Christ: a future restoration of the Jewish nation. In days past that nation had enjoyed a place of nearness to the LORD, pictured under the figure of the marriage-tie. Sadly, they had been unfaithful to the LORD, broken His law, turned to idols, and rejected their Messiah. So Jerusalem and her cities had become desolate. The nation was like an unfaithful wife who has been refused: the LORD had forsaken them in His anger and hidden His face from them.
"Youth" points back to the nation's beginnings. One writer ties Isaiah's phrase to the day Israel entered Canaan, when God rolled away the reproach of Egypt.
All is left behind — "the reproach of Egypt," as it says here, "the shame of their youth," as Isaiah says. All is cancelled. "Today," says the LORD to Joshua, after the people were circumcised, "I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you." He was beginning again with His people.
The second disgrace gets the gentler name. Isaiah elsewhere speaks of divorce, but here God says widowhood.
When the Lord has brought her to Himself in the bonds of the covenant, He does not refer to her former state as one of divorce, but as one of widowhood. That is, He calls to mind the sorrow of her former condition, not the shame. It may be divorce and shame (Isa. 50:1), yet the Lord will not remember it as such… Does this not tell us tenderly that with our God there is forgetting as well as forgiving? He takes away the sting of painful memories, and He covers a multitude of sins.
Fear ends because of who steps in, not because of what she has done.
The LORD stoops to be the husband of Zion. This is no longer a mere test and display of man's responsibility under law. It works in the power of grace, when boasting is no more in the flesh but in the LORD.
One writer sets the two chapters side by side, and reads Israel's long widowhood through Naomi and Ruth:
Compare Isaiah 53 with Isaiah 54. The prophecy first foretells how the remnant of Israel will confess their terrible guilt in rejecting their Messiah. Chapter 54 then follows at once, announcing that the LORD receives the nation into His close favour. For a long stretch of centuries Israel had languished in the widowed state of Naomi and Ruth. But now marriage with the LORD, her Redeemer, would take the place of this mourning and loss.
Commentators hold that the promise fits Israel. Reading it as a promise to the church breaks the sense. One writer presses the point with a question:
This promise is exquisite when addressed to Israel, but false and absurd if applied to the Church: "You will forget the shame of your youth, and the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more. For your Maker is your husband… For a brief moment I deserted you" — for what "brief moment" has Christ deserted the Church?
Others note that the principle reaches further than the earthly city. The same promises belong in principle to "the heavenly Jerusalem's children" (H. J. Vine).
- Guilt first. Chapter 53 records the confession of guilt for rejecting the Messiah. Chapter 54 announces the welcome back.
- Grace, not law. God becomes husband to Zion in the power of grace. Boasting is in Him, not in the flesh. That is why fear is ruled out.
- Forgetting, not just forgiving. He names her past as widowhood rather than divorce: sorrow remembered, shame refused.
- Cancelled at the root. The "shame of your youth" is the old reproach of Egypt, rolled away when God began again with His people.
- Israel first. The promise fits a nation abandoned for a moment. Its principle then reaches the heavenly city's children.
For thy Maker is thy husband Jehovah of hosts is his name, and thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel the God of the whole earth shall he be called.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
For Jehovah hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and as a wife of youth, that hath been refused, saith thy God.
Isaiah 54 turns from the suffering Servant of chapter 53 to a woman set aside — abandoned, heartbroken, refused. The striking word is called: God does not just watch her grief, He speaks to her in it.
The picture works because a real bond stood behind it. Commentators point out that Israel lived near to God in a relationship Scripture calls a marriage. So her unfaithfulness was a wife's sin, not a stranger's.
It is undeniable that the Jews, or Zion if you will, had the place of nearness to Jehovah pictured by the marriage-tie. She had been faithless and gone after many lovers — even the idols of the nations. As a result God divorced her, and she became a widow, desolate under His righteous dealing. Adultery was her sin, rather than fornication.
("Jehovah" in these quotations is the name the ESV prints as "the LORD.")
"Deserted" is not only a feeling. Writers describe the widow picture as a lost standing: she no longer belongs to one who owns, protects and provides.
In the prophecies the Holy Spirit uses the figure of widowhood — the loss of divine ownership, protection, and supporting care — to describe the religious and moral destitution of the people of Israel. It came from their public association with the false gods of the nations. So, through one of the earliest of the prophets, Jehovah renounced all relationship with His people because of their unfaithfulness to Him. He said, "She is not My wife, and I am not her Husband" (Hosea 2:2).
The chapter's place matters. The call comes straight after the account of Christ's sufferings. That order explains how God can address a refused wife at all.
In chapter 53 we hear the Spirit of God foretelling the sufferings of Christ and the glories that will follow. In chapter 54 we learn that, after the exaltation of Christ, there will be a future restoration of the Jewish nation. In days past it had enjoyed a place of nearness to Jehovah. Sadly, they had been unfaithful to Him, broken His law, turned to idols, and rejected their Messiah. So Jerusalem and her cities had become desolate. Jehovah had forsaken the nation in His wrath and hidden His face from them, as from an unfaithful wife who has been refused.
God could name her by her record. Instead He reaches back to the start of the relationship.
Israel was married to Jehovah, as the prophets remind the people (Isa. 54; Jer. 3). Yet His grace may one day deal with Israel not as a guilty widow but as a woman forsaken and a wife of youth.
One writer traces the way God speaks to a people whose past was against them.
Nothing can be more moving than the many ways in which He seeks to win their hearts for Himself. In them He expresses the place they have in His heart, and His unchangeable faithfulness to promise and purpose for them, however sad their course has been. He can even recall the love of their betrothal, "when you went after Me in the wilderness" (Jer. 2), and plead with them to return to Him.
Commentators leave these words with Israel. The verses that follow settle it: a forsaking that lasts only a moment fits Israel's history, but not the church.
It is not true that God has forsaken the church even for a small moment. Nor does He hide His face from the Christian for an instant in a little wrath. Such and so great is the power of redemption. Of the Jew this is exactly the present fact. And just as surely He will yet gather His ancient people in His mercy for ever.
The refusal has a time limit. The chapter moves from a rejected wife to a comforted one, with children gathered while she was desolate.
Jerusalem is looked at as barren and desolate, after having rejected Him who came to be her husband. But now grace has made Jehovah her righteousness. She is called to enlarge the place of her tent, and to spread out the curtains of her dwelling. That grace indeed counts all who were gathered during her desolation as her children. For a little while God has treated her as a rejected wife, but has now comforted her with everlasting mercies.
- Married. The grief here rests on a bond. Israel stood near to God in what Scripture pictures as a marriage, so her turn to idols is adultery, not a stranger's sin.
- Refused. In the prophets, widowhood means a lost owner, protector and provider. That was Israel's destitution after she joined herself to the gods of the nations.
- Called. The call comes after chapter 53. Christ's sufferings and exaltation open the way back for a nation that rejected its Messiah.
- Renamed. Grace names her not as a guilty widow but as a woman forsaken and a wife of youth. It reaches past her record to the love of her first days.
- Comforted. The forsaking lasts a small moment; the mercies are everlasting. Commentators keep this promise with Israel, since God has never forsaken the church for a moment.